One thing that's already hard to communicate to young people is that the world didn't used to seem like a never-ending parade of sociopathic, gaslighting assholes. Oh, they were there, but they were happy to do their evil work behind the scenes. Now they require pop-star levels of adoration too.
@stevesilberman Before T-Rump these people knew they would be shamed & kept their thoughts to themselves. Now the lid is off & they think not only that they can say anything, but that everyone undoubtedly agrees with them.
@stevesilberman Critical mass wasn't easy 40 years ago. Letters to a newspaper weren't always published and even if they were, most had limited reach. The Internet has definitely given everyone a megaphone. As the most extreme and violent stuff gets clicks, social sites help it along by turning the volume up.
@stevesilberman
My son is in his late 20s. He has no lived experience of anything resembling functional government, but he's lived through two major economic crashes and a pandemic.
@stevesilberman I think a big difference between pre-1990 and now is that they had a harder time finding each other and planning get-togethers by mail and ads in magazines was a lot more arduous. They reinforce each other now as well as being much more visible to the rest of us.
@stevesilberman Back in my day the sociopathic gaslighting a##holes were in comic books with bald heads and names like Lex Luthor; these days they are on social media with spray tans.
There only seems more bc soc media puts them in ur face & on ballots. But I've no reason 2 think the ratio of decent folk 2 assholes hasn't remained similar to what it's been
Then why off social media does there seem more?
Perhaps it still isn't that there are more sociopathic gaslighters; rather that I've stopped gaslighting myself, projecting onto them my thinking that they don't have 2b assholes, that they can learn 2b better
@stevesilberman The attention economy gave rise to more and more sociopaths and the onslaught on information/stimulation let the well-behaved villains get away with no longer being well-behaved.
Add comment